MINNEAPOLIS - Racial justice advocates say they hope their movement doesn't slow down after the recent anniversary of George Floyd's death and the conviction of Derek Chauvin. Minnesota groups continue behind-the-scenes work they feel will contribute to ending systemic racism.

The spring saw activists and their supporters holding rallies similar to last year. Christian McCleary, an activist working with programs such as the Council for Black Male Success in St. Paul, said those visible elements of the demand for change are important.

But he said it can't be the only way to achieve equality.

"It's beyond just the policing," said McCleary. "It's the housing, it's the education, it's the mentorships, it's the relationships. All of those things are not being prioritized. "

The Council was formed about six years ago through the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation. Its mission centers around life-long mentorships for Black males.

Floyd's death sparked more awareness about Minnesota's longstanding racial disparities, and the Foundation says solutions have to be community driven.

The Foundation also is investing in the Family Housing Fund, which focuses on equitable and affordable housing across the Twin Cities region.

The group's Vice President Colleen Ebinger said a new program helps Black, Indigenous and People of Color residents become owners of two- to four-unit properties.

"Disparities in wealth, in this state and also across the country," said Ebinger, "are largely due to disparities in property ownership."

She said owning a duplex or triplex can not only give marginalized residents extra rental income, but the Fund estimates it can provide about $300,000 in net wealth over 15 years.

The Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation's Senior Vice President of Community Impact, Pahoua Yang Hoffman, said this behind-the-scenes work at the community level was going on prior to the racial reckoning.

She added the collective effort should be at the center of the movement towards transformative change.

"Our community members already know what the need to do," said Hoffman. "But they need the time and the resources to support their work so they can show up and build coalitions, build partnerships. And this is the hard, long-term work."

Beyond the community level, other organizations and activists continue to press policymakers at the Minnesota Capitol. They're hoping for adoption of additional police accountability measures.

Minnesota continues to rank highly for quality-of-life indicators, including health, but long-standing disparities persist.

A new round of grants will help community-based social entrepreneurs and nonprofits boost health access for underserved populations. The EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator is led by the American Heart Association and is in its second year of funding Minnesota initiatives.

Kelly Robinson, owner and CEO of Messianic Care in the Twin Cities, took home this summer's top grant prize of $15,000.

With this year's emphasis on helping women, she will use the funding for activities to promote heart health which are more engaging.

"It allows me financially to provide things that I know culturally excites us," Robinson explained. "Who wants to go to the gym and just work out, you know? But for us, I pay for line dancing, I pay for step dancing."

She pointed out efforts like this bring more cardiac awareness to women of color, who are near middle age but lack resources such as insurance. As a community health advocate, Robinson also hopes to use funding to purchase equipment such as blood pressure cuffs.

Among its most concerning data, Minnesota has a high racial disparity in premature death rates, ranking 48th in the nation.

Finalists get a chance to present their ideas at the General Mills headquarters through an event sponsored by Cheerios.

Kerry DeLaney, business unit director for the company, said as they pursue more health equity around the state as a corporation, they need to elevate the people on the ground doing the work.

"Our contribution is to fund them and help accelerate their business ventures," DeLaney noted.

DeLaney, who is also a board member of the American Heart Association-Minnesota, stressed Cheerios does not greatly benefit from the program as a public relations move because it is still largely away from the public's radar.

However, the company said it is committed for the long term and is signed on as a sponsor for next year's grant cycle. DeLaney added he hopes to expand the program's reach across the region.

As states ban abortion with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, women's advocates in New York and beyond are raising awareness of the outsized impact these policies will have on Black women -- and they're outlining a framework for economic and health justice moving forward.

The Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls has created a legislative agenda for putting Black women at the center of these policy discussions, to address their long-standing economic barriers.

Azza Altiraifi, senior policy manager for the group Liberation in a Generation, co-chaired the working group that put together the report and said dismantling every structure of oppression is necessary to create collective economic prosperity, and to strengthen democracy.

"It is futile to singularly focus on just closing racial gaps, whether it's wealth or health or housing or education," Altiraifi said, "unless they are also willing to uproot and dismantle the primary causes of those inequities in the first place."

The report relied on the intersectional "Black Women Best" framework coined by Janelle Jones, the first Black woman to serve as chief economist in the Department of Labor. Altiraifi said it builds on a rich history of Black women's feminist scholarship, and includes ties to disability, reproductive and economic justice.

Along with centering Black women, Altiraifi said it's important to follow their leadership on these issues that have affected them disproportionately, adding that in the post-Roe landscape, advocates will be looking to the networks of abortion care that have been built by Black women over time.

"Black women have, in the face of such organized abandonment - both historically and presently - created their own systems, networks of care and community support to meet each other's needs," Altiraifi said, "at a time and in places where the state was failing to do so."

The report pointed to such policies as guaranteed income that have proved to help reduce economic disparities. Members of the congressional caucus, including U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., also have introduced a resolution encouraging their colleagues to follow the blueprint from the Black Women Best report.

Pride Month during June highlights the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, which have long faced discrimination. People in these communities say they continue to face prejudice in Montana, including in finding a place to live.

Pam Bean, executive director of the nonprofit Montana Fair Housing, said LGBTQ people only recently received a major victory in housing at the federal level.

"Given the fact that it's only been a year-and-a-half that under the Fair Housing Act, it's illegal to discriminate against this population based on gender identity and sexual orientation," she said, "there's a lot of education that still needs to take place with housing providers."

A 2020 report from UCLA found LGBTQ people face significant barriers to finding housing. Young adults in this population experience homelessness at a rate more than twice that of the general public. The number is even higher for people younger than 18.

Bean has noticed that people moving from out of state may not understand some of the landlord-tenant laws in Montana or local city ordinances, and this has led to conflict at times. For instance, she spoke to one renter who hung LGBTQ Pride flags outside his residence.

"He and the housing provider ended up with a very adversarial relationship," she said, "because he didn't realize he had to get permission to be hanging things up on the exterior of the unit."

Bean said it's important to understand the laws governing housing. But she also notes that organizations such as hers can provide dispute resolution between landlords and tenants.

"We can share information with both parties and educate them in regards to the issues at hand," she said, "and hopefully reach a resolution where, particularly in this housing market, the household is able to maintain their housing."

Bean said Montana Fair Housing also can help people file administrative complaints with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, she noted this isn't a speedy process, typically taking months or years to resolve.